NCIS Showrunner Don Bellisario “Wasn’t Completely Sure” Mark Harmon Was the Right Choice for Gibbs

NCIS has long raged as one of the most praiseworthy crime dramas of all time, and one of the major reasons behind its success besides its outstanding plotlines is the star-studded cast the show sported. Throughout the time it has been on air, the series cast the most perfect actors in the most accurate roles, with Mark Harmon leading it as Leroy Jethro Gibbs for almost two decades.

That said, Harmon’s casting, for one, continues to sit finely with fans worldwide, even after almost half a decade since the actor’s departure from the show in 2021. But the surprising part is that showrunner Don Bellisario wasn’t 100 percent on board from the start for casting Harmon as Gibbs, even though even the casting director had her eyes on the actor right from the start.

NCIS showrunner had to be convinced to cast Mark Harmon as Gibbs

As accurate as the casting choices in the crime drama were, making those decisions wasn’t too easy for the masterminds behind the show, even the casting of Mark Harmon as Gibbs. As it turns out, while casting director Susan Bluestein had her eyes on the actor from the start and knew she wanted to bring him on board the show, showrunner Don Bellisario wasn’t all too sure.

In the show’s oral history shared with The Hollywood Reporter, Bluestein shared the same, saying:

Casting was very challenging. I cast Mark Harmon to play John Dillinger in a movie of the week in 1991, and he was terrific. Mark had been on my NCIS list from day one. I always felt like Mark really had the gravitas for this character.

Peter Golden, who was the former head of CBS casting, backed up this comment, explaining that when Bluestein suggested Harmon, the actor was a “big deal,” so everyone thought, “We’ll make an offer to Mark Harmon, and when we don’t get him, let’s go through the list of who else we could get.” But the final decision only came when Bellisario got convinced too.

As Bluestein shared about Bellisario, “Don wasn’t completely sure [about Mark]. He hadn’t seen a lot of Mark’s work. I felt like I could turn that around.” To this, the showrunner confessed about Harmon, “The kind of character he played in other roles made it fit for this.” Thus, the two got into a meeting, “hit it off, and Harmon “agreed to do it.”

Well, that was that, and, following this casting, the rest was pretty much history as Harmon went on to embody Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the former U.S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper turned special agent, who commands a team for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, for almost two stunning decades as perfectly as ever.

Multiple other names were in the mix for Gibbs before Mark Harmon

While Harmon turned out to be the final ultimate choice for the role, quite a lot of names were thrown in the mix before his casting while searching for potential candidates who could bring Leroy Jethro Gibbs to life most accurately. For one, this even included Harrison Ford, because, as executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson shared, “He was so perfect.”

However, this choice could go no further than that as Peter Golden shared, “Back in the early 2000s, the Harrison Fords of the world [rarely did TV].” Besides him, other names investigated for the role, as Susan Bluestein shared, included the likes of “Alec Baldwin, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Berenger, Val Kilmer, Charlie Sheen, Aidan Quinn, and Patrick Swayze.”

Then there was also Silverado actor Scott Glenn, who was notably “considered very strongly,” as Johnson admitted. Bluestein seconded this thought, adding that

Scott Glenn was also being considered for the role of Ducky. There was a lot of discussion about Scott Glenn, and ultimately Scott Glenn passed. And other people passed for Gibbs.

In fact, even Pretty in Pink star Andrew McCarthy found his name making its way into the mix, with him even meeting up with Bellisario for the respective role. But, of course, only Mark Harmon was the perfect choice for the role, thus, the character couldn’t settle for anyone less. After all, how else could the show deliver so flawlessly without him leading the team?

NCIS can currently be streamed on Netflix.

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